


The Heart is a Risky Fuel to Burn

by those_sibilants



Category: Nashville (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brief Mention of Suicide, Homophobic Language, Internal homophobia, M/M, Some Fluff, brief mention of physical abuse, non-linear timeline, post coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:48:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/those_sibilants/pseuds/those_sibilants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how to be a man, his dad had told Will more than a decade ago and spoke nothing of love like love is not a necessity, like real men don't love. That night, as the world heaves around them, he tells Kevin he loves him even though he has never learned how to and thinks his dad knows nothing about being a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart is a Risky Fuel to Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by and reading this little thing. I started this right after the finale in may but life got in the way over the past few months. It's not beta'd so all mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy.

          The first time he sees Kevin perform he sits in the far back corner by the bar and downs scotch like water. It's three weeks after the press conference (later, when the nausea stops and he is no longer reeling, unbalanced and dizzy, he'll call it the day that changed everything instead of mistake) and people pack into the Bluebird for the songwriter showcase with a kind of palpable energy that's infectious. He keeps his head down, shoulders twisted away from the congested table area, but he can still feel eyes linger a little too long on his back. Snatches of conversation, the _isn't thats_ and the _hey, it's Will Lexingtons_ , break through the white noise and he shrinks, hunched shouldered, further into his seat. The bartender, an older woman who smiles tired at him, slides another two fingers of amber liquid in front of him. He thinks about leaving. Thinks about pushing through the door and not stopping until he can breathe easy again. He thinks about how much easier it was when he was alone and had nobody to love or to hurt. Another mouthful of scotch burns down his throat and settles hot in his stomach. He grits his teeth, knuckles white where he clutches the tumbler, and turns towards the stage (being alone, he'll decide later as Kevin sleeps next to him, is scarier than anything else). Kevin grins out at the crowd and Will hates how easy it is for him. He resents how the other man is not afraid to be himself; how he acts like he has nothing to lose. And he hates himself, too. He can't help it. Downing the rest of his drink, he sits back and watches as the man on stage begins to play.

 

         When he leaves Kevin's office after their first writing session he's buzzed off of adrenaline and one too many beers and he feels wobbly as if his center moved two inches to the left and he can't quite find his balance. That night he dreams of dark hair and guitar callouses and comes so hard he feels it spark in his molars, behind his eyes. During each session, he allows himself to pretend that he could reach across the table and thumb Kevin's bottom lip, the curve of his jaw. Allows himself to imagine what it would be like to finger the soft hair at the nape of his neck and hear the way his voice cracks in morning slowness. The other man laughs when he catches Will daydreaming and suggests that he has something better to do than work.

 

"Apparently," Kevin smirks, one eyebrow arched, "I'm not interesting enough for you."

 

Will shakes his head, flushes red and hot, before he clears his throat and focuses back on the song.

 

Kevin laughs, takes a pull of his beer, and props his feet on the table. "You got to relax, man. We can't write a good song if I can feel how stressed you are. Grab a beer and let's get to work."

 

And, after those sessions, when he is alone again, he knows that pretending wouldn’t be enough.

 

         A boy kisses him when he is sixteen and drunk in the back of his dad's pick-up truck in a field off of highway 385. The boy, Matt, is all blond hair and blue eyed, seventeen, and a football player whose dad’s the sheriff in Odessa. Someone, a senior, probably, built a bonfire in the middle of a barren lot that backs up to an oil field. Kids and cars spread themselves haphazardly among the scrub brush and scraggly native trees. They're on the fringe, facing away from the fire, watching the oil rigs heave in the distance. When Matt leans in, he thinks oh, oh this is what I've been missing, but it's chapped lips and too much tongue and panic bubbles ugly from the pit of his stomach so he shoves the other boy away and lands a right hook square to his jaw. He ends the night emptying the contents of his stomach on the side of the road.

  
         The night he came out, they sit on his front porch and watch the world come apart around them. It's a sort of undoing. The sky lit and throbbing. Tree branches moan and crack. It's not tornado season like they had in Texas but there's a violence in the way the rain thrashes against structures and ground, the way thunder rattles everything to its core, and the roar of the wind a battle cry. He should feel unsettled like the weather around him but he doesn't. Instead, he lets Kevin pull him off the bench and into the house, hand warm and sure in his. He laughs as the other man backs him against the door and melds their mouths together. Later, when the world is still shaking apart at the seams and Kevin is asleep, arm draped across his waist, legs tangled together, Will fingers through the dark bed mussed hair, ghosts fingers down to where the bed sheet lays across the small of his back, and thinks that this may be enough.

 

         Music has always been something that was his. Something that he can control and manipulate, that he could craft with his two hands, and own. He hopped from dive bar to dive bar playing the songs that work gnarled regulars wanted to hear. Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Merle Haggard became what he knew and, as he sang and smiled, all blue eyed and Texas charm, he wanted to be them. So he sang about beer and truck. Sang about working man's blues and God and women like he could own those things, too. It worked in Nashville until it didn't. Until Kevin called him out and forced him to believe that he could be more than those old songs. He could be more than those ghosts that haunted him. Now, as he watches Kevin spill and ache on stage, as the man sings about loss and loneliness and moving on, he hurts more than those old songs ever did.

 

"This next one," Kevin says low and slow into the microphone as the crowd settles into silence once more, "is for someone special."

 

         It's November when his dad finds him in bed with Matt. A cold snap came early that year and turns the ground hard and crunchy with ice that can only sting and tear at skin when his dad throws the half naked boy down the stairs of their porch. The last time he sees Matt there is blood dripping from his nose and a bruise blooming over his cheekbone. An hour later, his mom stands by the front door, arms curled around herself, crying as his dad shoves him into his truck and drives away. He'd just turned seventeen.

 

         He spends those days at the lake house wanting and touching and being touched and it's so easy that it terrifies him, especially in the morning when Kevin, still sleep slow, steals into his space and licks into his mouth, all coffee breath and needy. When the night envelopes them in its velvet, they sit in the glow of the fire pit and spill the stories they kept tucked in the dark recesses of their minds.

 

"When I got to Nashville," he starts staring down at the bottle dangling from his fingers. Kevin is a quiet warmth pressed against his side. He swallows hard and continues, "I googled his name. Found his obituary in the local paper. He killed himself a year after my dad threw him off that porch."

 

Kevin twines their fingers together and squeezes, a constant pressure, a grounding rod, and Will knows that they are lucky. It's sick to think it could've been worse because Kevin's got a scar that curls around his rib cage where his daddy took a broken beer bottle to him and Will's father left him on the side of the road two hours from Dallas with a bag and his thrift store guitar. But they escaped. They made something of themselves and, maybe, that's all they should want. The fire crackles and spits at the chill in the spring air but Will shivers despite the warmth it radiates. They sit pressed together and watch the fire slowly die. That night, after they're sweat slicked and sated, he presses his cheek to the scar and Kevin threads his fingers through his hair. It's the closest thing to contentment Will has ever felt.

 

         When Jimmy calls a week after the press conference to tell him that the CMA Fest cancelled his appearance, he throws his phone across the living room. It smashes into an array of glass and bits of metal and plastic. Bile rises in the back of his throat. For an instant, he wishes he could retreat back into the closet and bolt the door closed. He wants to erase the past few days but he can't so he overturns the coffee table, knocks the lamp off the side table, breaks a glass, and accidentally slices his left palm on the broken fragments. Kevin finds him sitting in the aftermath, a handkerchief tied around his hand, shoulders shaking as he falls apart, and wraps an arm around him, tucks Will's head into the crook of his neck.

 

"Well," Kevin drawls after Will has stopped quaking, "I think you may need stitches and a new phone."

 

And Will laughs and laughs and laughs, a little rough, a little desperate, like it's the only thing he can do.

 

         The song winds its way around his sternum, shoves itself between his fifth and sixth rib and twists and twists and twists until it burns behind his eyes. Kevin doesn't look at him as he plucks out each chord and fills the space with his words. His voice is strong, almost defiant, in its sweetness. It’s simple, really -- acoustic, just a few notes, and no backing band. There is no gimmicks, no hooks, and it's raw and honest and sounds so much like love that Will doesn't know what to do. So he sits and basks in its honey warmth, in those words that Kevin hasn't said just yet, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is worth it.

 

_If we're going to make it / 'cross this river alive / we've got to think like a boat / and go with the tides._

 

         Gunnar calls early one morning to tell him that the press have found the house. The sun slants sharp through the window and he is drowsy with sleep and warmth. The other man stirs, pulls the sheet further up his shoulders, and drifts off again.

 

"It's a zoo, man." Gunnar warns on the phone. "They've camped out on the driveway. I could barely get in this morning. You and Kevin need to stay away. Maybe get out of town for the next few days. Let the dust settle, you know?"

 

He hangs up after a few murmured words and thinks about leaving. It would be so easy to go somewhere with a lot more land and less people so he could start over again. Someplace where he still had anonymity and a cabin to himself. Where he wouldn't feel claustrophobic and restless like he is trapped in his skin. But, outside, the world is damp and new, radiant after it survived the storm. There's a bluebird singing its spring song loud and persistent near the window. Fingertips brush against his hip. He bends, presses his lips to a bare shoulder, ghosts his hand over the expanse of exposed skin, and watches as the other man shifts into consciousness.

 

"Hey," he says, voice loud in the morning stillness.

 

"Mornin'," Kevin blinks and smiles still lose from sleep. "You alright?"

 

The world's a mess outside this house and Will doesn't know if he'll ever be ready to face it but Kevin's got pillow creases on his cheek and a lock of hair falling in front of his eyes. In this light, bleary and smiling, he looks younger than he ever has. There's something that Will thinks is love bubbling under his skin.

 

"Yeah," he says as he slides down the bed until he is lying propped on an elbow, free hand reaching to thumb over Kevin's cheekbone, his bottom lip. "Yeah, I am."

 

Leaning over, he fits their mouths together, sweet, slow, morning breath and all. Here, in this house, in this room, they are untouchable, he thinks, as Kevin rolls on top of him, heavy and sure.

 

         Luke releases a statement a few days after everything changed:

> _Will Lexington's decision to reveal something inherently personal to his fans and the country music community takes a great amount of courage that we can only applaud. Mr. Lexington is an incredibly talented musician and performer and will always have a place at Wheelin' and Dealin' Records. We not only support his decision to come out but look forward to continuing our friendship and professional relationship for many years_.

 

He reads every single comment that follows -- all the sodomy jokes, the death threats. Faggot appears over forty times in the comments section.  He counted. Twice. He can't stop reading the comments, the tweets, and every article even though it's all the same. They all predict his fall from grace, the end of his career, and how he will drag everyone down with him. And, when Kevin comes into the living room rubbing sleep from his eyes and asking him if he's alright, he can't help but think they're right.

                 One of Kevin's clients, a kid, barely twenty, signed to Big Machine, who gets by with a toothpaste ad smile and catchy hooks, fires him for turning Will gay as if being gay is a fungus he could catch. Kevin doesn't need the kid, Will knows, not with a CMA nomination for a single he co-wrote with Blake Shelton. There's been talk about a Grammy nod, too, but it's one more thing, another punch to the gut that leaves him breathless and gasping. Later that day, when he watches Kevin recount what happened, fingers running through his hair in agitation, he knows those awards, those nominations mean shit.

 

"I'm sorry." He says again and again and again like it's the only word he knows now, like it will fix things.

 

"Goddammit," Kevin says. His voice edged with weariness. "Will you just stop?"

 

This man drooped on the couch, elbows on knees, hands clasped, and eyes closed, is someone he has never seen before. When Will leaves, that man looks a little like defeat.

 

           He calls his mom on his eighteenth birthday. It's mid-afternoon, his dad should be at work, and she answers his greeting with silence. He's in Austin now playing some gigs with a couple of bands and working as a waiter on Sixth Street to make ends meet, he tells her silence as it stretches big and wide around him. Austin's large and weird and nothing like his home town and, sometimes, he feels like he gets lost in it, like he doesn't quite fit here, either. He's eighteen and he tells his mother that he misses her and she doesn't know what to say to him anymore. He trails off into his own silence and listens to this woman he no longer knows breathe on the other line. At eighteen, he wants to ask her why she doesn't love him anymore but he doesn't know how.

 

"Please don't call again." Her voice an exhalation, a sadness, that seeps through the phone line.

 

 

         "Do you regret it?" He asks one night at the lake as he leans against the counter and watches Kevin chop peppers for dinner.

 

Rain taptaptaps steady against the windows and Kevin's barefoot in jeans. He sets the knife down, turns towards Will, and waits, arms crossed, for the other man to gather his thoughts.

 

"I mean," Will glances down at his hands, "you could've had it all."

 

He shakes his head and tells Will that you can't, he can't, have it all but his life's pretty damn good before he steals into the other man's space and slips his hands under Will's t-shirt. And, now, as he watches that man who, at the age of twenty- eight, already realized he couldn't be himself and make it in this world so he readjusted his dreams, stare down the audience, fearlessly, a couple leaves halfway through the song even though Kevin is better, braver, than ninety percent of the artists on the radio. They meet his gaze and mutter fag as they walk out the door.

 

 _My life is pretty damn good_ , Kevin said that night at the lake as the rain sets tempo and his fingers piano up Will's ribs. In the low light of the cafe, he watches this man sing about a kind of love that hurts, and he can only hope Kevin is right.

 

         People Magazine calls him the face of change in Nashville. On the cover, there's a picture of him, carefree and grinning, guitar slung across his back, as he plays to a sold out stadium in St. Louis. It's from last summer and he can still remember the way the crowd sang the lyrics of his song back to him. It felt like he had made it. Afterwards, they partied until the sun split open the horizon and people dropped with fatigue. Inside, there's picture of him shirtless and laughing on the porch of the lake house while Kevin grins into his coffee. That morning Kevin told him about the first tourist bar in Tallahassee that hired him at sixteen to play old country standards where he was required to wear a ten gallon and fringe. That morning was slow and sweet and he had laughed so hard it hurt. He glances up from the magazine rack and catches the eye of the cashier. Painted lips pursed, she glares at him while she rings up his groceries and he can't look away from the disgust written across her face. Overhead, George Strait sings about loving a woman.

 

"People like you," she says, southern twang thick. Her eyes tighten as she pauses and begins to bag his purchases. "Are going to rot in hell, you know?" She shakes her head and all he can do is stare at her in stunned silence. "It ain't right, what you people do."

 

Clenching his jaw, he takes the receipt and his bags. Uttering a quiet thanks, ma'am, he heads out with her gaze still burning into his back. That magazine is wrong, he thinks after he slams his fist into the steering wheel over and over until his knuckles sting more than her words, nothing's going to change.

 

         The porch is already steeped in late afternoon bronze when the living room and Kevin's anger become unbearable and he escapes outside. A door thuds somewhere inside the house and then there is stillness. He closes his eyes, rests his head on the back of the bench, and listens to the breeze kick up some debris. It's warm for early spring and the birds are already singing. He doesn't know how long it takes for the weight, something heavy like panic, that sits on his chest to lift but it does and he can breathe a little easier. Sometime later, when the sun slides lower in the sky, Kevin sits next to him, a deliberate line of heat against his side. His wet hair drips onto the collar of his worn sweater and he picks at a threadbare patch on his jeans.

 

"You need to know that none of this is your fault, Will." Kevin says, quiet and tired like he has been on the front lines of this war for far too long. "But I need to be angry, I have to be angry, because the moment that we don't react to the things like what that idiot kid says, they win."

 

It takes a lot to be defiant, to continually face down everyone around them, and Will is already so tired. _I'm not good at this_ , he thinks as he swallows around the fear that burns up his esophagus like heartburn. He doesn't know what it's like to love or be loved, to be a partner, to be out, or to fight for things that were once handed to him but he reaches over and slots their hands together, palm against palm.

 

"I don't know how to do this," he finally says after the silence began to feel like it could consume him. He wants to say the he doesn't know if he can do this but he doesn't have a choice, really.

 

Kevin tips his head towards him and smiles faintly, almost sad. "We'll figure it out."

 

A car creeps down the road and disappears further into the sleepy little neighborhood. He flexes his hand under the bandage and feels the stitches pull tight. "Do you think it's worth it?"

 

Shifting closer, Kevin cups his jaw, hands warm against his skin, and kisses him slow, sweet. When they break apart, breathless, he presses his forehead against Will's temple and, in the hush of sunset, he nods. "I do. I have to."

 

        It takes awhile for the Bluebird to empty. People, drunk off the music and alcohol, are quick to start conversations and Kevin's there smiling and laughing in the midst of the chaos. Chairs scrape against the floor. Dishes clank together.  It's too loud, too cramped, and Will almost sneaks out along the edges but he catches Kevin's eye across the room and the other man grins at him so he exhales and sags back on his stool.

 

"Hang in there, kid."  The bartender smiles and hands him his tab. "It'll get better, you'll see."

 

She disappears down the bar and he is left with the remains of his beer, label already picked off. Soon, the room clears and only the stragglers remain as they finish their drinks. The radio plays an old Bonnie Raitt song and he makes his way, loose limbed and slightly drunk, to the stage where Kevin is packing up the equipment with the rest of his band.

 

Kevin grins, eyes bright and so very blue under the dim house lights. "Hey there."

 

"You are incredible," he says as he hooks a finger in Kevin's belt loop and tugs the other man a step closer.

 

Maybe it’s the alcohol that makes him want to close the space between them and fit their mouths together. Maybe it’s the fact that they survived this past week and, when they step out of those front doors, there will be reporters clamoring for a picture. But Kevin's hand pushes against his chest as he leans in and there's an apology already slipping past his mouth and he can't stop staring at the man, hand still firm against his chest, before him. Around them, the wait staff clean up for the night and Scott, the bass player, waves as he heads out the door.

 

"I'm, um," he steps back, wraps a hand around the back of his neck. "I'll see you at the house."

 

"Will," Kevin reaches out, curls his fingers around his wrist, "wait."

 

But he shakes him off and heads into the cameras, the flashing lights and questions, alone.

 

          For his tenth birthday, his dad takes him fishing on a lake deep in the heart of hill country. It's a boys trip, his dad says. Rolling her eyes, his mom packs a cooler full of beer and soda, stuff for sandwiches, and tells them to be safe. That weekend, his dad teaches him how to bait and cast, clean and gut the fish. He teaches him how to be a man. When Will's cutting a jagged line down a bass's belly for the first time, his dad smiles at him and Will thinks that's the closest thing to love he has ever felt. He wants to live in it.

 

Later, his dad takes a pull from his beer and says, "listen here, son. There are only three things you should know about being a man: 1) go to church and say your thanks because we wouldn't be here without our lord's goodness. 2) find a good girl and treat her well. A man's family should be his greatest pride. 3) work hard to support your family. It doesn't have to be anything fancy but a man who can't take care of his own ain't a man. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

 

He stares at his father lit by the strange glow of the campfire, a bottle of coke clutched in his hands and nods. "Yes, sir."

 

His dad laughs, deep and long, and claps him on the shoulder. "That's a good boy."

 

When he sleeps with Matt for the first time it's messy fumbling in the cab of his dad's truck. They're sloppy and desperate to touch and be touched and Will barely gets his pants kicked off before he comes hard and breathless.  Afterwards, he presses his forehead against the other boy's chest and thinks back to that night at the lake. He knows he has already failed his dad.

 

Now, he faces a sea of cameras, people calling questions loud like the crash of waves, and finds his dad frozen, jaw clenched, hands balled into fists, near the back of the room. It's here, surrounded by chaos, that his dad looks so much older in his silence. _This is how to be a man_ , he had told Will more than a decade ago and spoke nothing of love like love is not a necessity, like real men don't love. That night, as the world heaves around them, he tells Kevin he loves him even though he has never learned how to. His dad knows nothing about being a man.

 

          There are moments in the weeks after he came out that he sees Kevin staring at him, mouth pulled down into a frown, and he wants to tell him that if he doesn’t want this, doesn’t want him the same way Will does, then he should leave now but Will has never been good with words so he bits his lip and pretends he doesn't see how doubt lingers in Kevin's eyes. Sometimes, he wishes that he never went to Kevin's house after the charity event, never asked if they could be something more or, maybe, if they were still at the lake house cocooned in the simplicity of just being together, of not worrying about anything outside of that house. He whispers that last part into the dark of their room when the shadows stretch long and thick from the corners.

 

"Me too," Kevin sighs, voice a little rough, and skims his lips down the column of his neck, "but we can't hide away forever, Will."

 

It's true, Will knows, they can't run away and hide. They can't cloister themselves away some place so that they can't be touched, be hurt, by what is happening around them. He knows this but it doesn't mean he can't desperately wish it was just the two of them without the eyes of the world watching them, judging them.

 

         Sometimes, when the walls press inwards and the ceiling feels like a weight pressing down, crushing, your sternum, you've got to leave so he drives until the city lights smudge in the rear view mirror and the night sky stretches unmarred before him and pulls off onto some country road. Here, he can breathe. Here, sitting on the hood of his truck with the sky stretching before him, he can finally feel like he isn't too big for his skin, like his whole world hasn't been reduced to a pinprick or a magazine article. The sky is so expansive he thinks it could swallow him and he'd let it. He doesn't miss much about his hometown but the sky there was so goddamn big. When he was a kid, he'd sneak out on the roof at night and sit for hours and, later, when his dad and the world became too much, that roof at night became his escape, his place to just be. Here, he feels small, lonely, and more like his old self then he has in awhile. This old version of himself he understands and knows. He'd told Kevin he felt like he could be himself around him but he thinks he may have lied. The stage, his music, is so much a part of who he is that he doesn't know who he is without it now that it has been yanked out of his reach. How can one be himself when he no longer knows who he is? _You are still the same Will Lexington you were yesterday and last week and the week before that_ , Kevin had said one night when he tried to explain that he was afraid he was losing himself, _I wish you understood that you are not losing yourself, Will, but deciding who you get to be and I don't know if you know what you want_. Will remembers how Kevin scrubbed a hand down his face, how he had sounded so resigned, so tired, when he said he had a meeting, how loneliness vibrated in his chest when the door slammed behind him, and how Will stayed in that living room until his anger simmered to hurt. That afternoon he realized he didn’t want the quiet that comes with loneliness. That afternoon he decided he would go see Kevin at the Bluebird because he wanted to be a person who didn’t hide.  Now, a cold wind needles its way past the thin material of his button down, his teeth clatter, and the stars blink down at him without answers. They had always been his escape, a place that reflects his solitude, his pain, but, as much as he understands how to function in that world, he doesn’t want it anymore.  

 

         It's late when he comes home and finds Kevin asleep on the couch, head tipped to the side, legs splayed, with the soft glow of the side table lamp throwing shadows across his face. Leaning against the threshold, he watches, for just a few moments, the rise and fall of the other man's chest, his stillness, and Will wants to keep this quietness, this ease but he can't so he pads soft across the room and kneels.

 

"Hey," he says as he thumbs back and forth over Kevin's collar bone, the grey t-shirt he had changed into soft under Will's hand.

 

The other man stirs, blinks the sleep from his eyes, and sits up slow. “You’re back.”

 

“Yeah,” he rocks back and drops his hand from Kevin’s shoulder, “I’m, uh, I’m sorry I took off like that. I needed to think.”

 

Kevin rubs a hand across his face. “Listen, Will, I--”

 

“No, I need to say something, ok?” He lowers himself onto the far end of the couch and leans forward, elbows on knees, fingers steepled together. “These past few weeks have been really rough and I never stopped to consider how you feel about what has happened. I’ve been selfish and I’m sorry.” Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Kevin reach towards him, forehead creasing, mouth parting to object. He shakes his head and turns to face the other man. “The one thing that I need to know is if you want this as much as I do. I understand if all of this -- the media attention, the stupid people . . . everything-- is too much and you want to end it before I ruin everything you've worked for.”

 

Kevin slides over until he is a faint line of heat against Will's side and stills. "Do you really think that I don't want this, want you?" There's a smallness, a thinness, to his voice that hurts and makes Will want to reach over and cling to the other man but he doesn't. "I'm so afraid that one day you will wake up and realize it wasn't worth it, I'm not worth it. You talk so much about how you've lost yourself and you don't know who you are anymore and every time I looked over at you tonight you looked like you hated being there." His voice tapers into silence and Will glances at the other man and studies the creases at the corners of Kevin's eyes, the way his mouth pinches into a tight line. "I didn't kiss you because I didn't want to, Will. There were still so many people around and I didn't want to do something that you would regret in the morning."

 

The house sighs, settles around them, and Will feels the night, a certain weariness, in his bones. "I don’t want to be a person that hides anymore but that doesn’t mean I know how to be out, how to deal with all the stares, the whispers." He turns towards the other man, back against the arm of the couch. “I’m trying so goddamn hard, Kevin, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.”

 

Kevin’s staring at him. His face a flux of emotions that Will doesn’t or isn’t ready to understand but there is a smile teasing the corners of his mouth, and eyes, wide and wet with sadness or laughter or maybe the need for sleep, trace and process. He bites his lip and Will is restless in this strange sort of stasis, of quiet. Pushing himself off the couch, Kevin stands in front of him, hand reaching out. “Come here.” He squeezes Will’s fingers and tugs. “Come here.”

 

Will lets him pull him to his feet, trace fingers over his cheekbones and down his neck, press their foreheads together, and hold him in the shadows and hum of night like he is as fragile as he pretends not to be, as breakable as kindling. And he fists Kevin shirt and trembles under those hands that gentle down his sides, encircle his waist, secure.

 

“I love you.” It’s quiet and deliberate and Will feels those words settle like a second skin.

 

It’s not an answer, this burning, twisting thing called love but something to hold onto, to grasp, when it feels like everything is crumbling around you and Will clings to it like it’s a life-line.

  
         Sex has always been a means to the end, a way to keep up appearances and cultivate a reputation. It was calculated, a combination of repulsion and physical pleasure, that left him empty and unsatisfied. Those few men he slept with, a violent reminder that he would never be normal, left him feeling disgusted, nauseous like he was spinning out of control, an inevitable crash and burn. It was a painful and dangerous temptress that burned and itched beneath his skin. It made him jumpy. But the first night Kevin made him come undone he did it so slowly that Will couldn't think, couldn't breathe under those hands, that mouth. Afterwards, with Kevin nosing at his hairline, panic balled in his chest cavity, a flickerbeat of fear, and he wanted to leave, to run, before it became too much, but Kevin's hand was sure and warm against his back. _You're fine_ , he said, lips against his forehead, more rumble than sound, _you're ok_ , and Will believed him, sank into him like the weight of a body, of Kevin, could stop the spinning. Now, desire strings his bones together, simmers hot and delicious under his skin, and, as Kevin scrapes his teeth down the cord of his neck, he feels like he is extending past his toes, his fingertips, until he is the night sky, expansive and poked through with stars. And Kevin’s above him, around him, holding him down, a grounding rod, an anchor as they crack and break and come back together again so terrifying, so good. But he wants this. He wants to wrap  his legs around this man and drag him so close that they can hardly breath and relish in the heat and skin and synchronicity of bodies as they crash together again and again and again. He wants to stretch the realm of time until they can be themselves unconstrained and limitless; instead, he settles for pressing his hand to the scar on Kevin’s side and thinks _here, here we are loved._

**Author's Note:**

> I shamelessly stole the title from the song "Being in Love," by Songs: Ohia from the album The Lioness.  
> The lyrics featured in this piece is from "Song of Good Hope," by Glen Hansard from the album Rhythm and Repose.
> 
> Some of the other songs that inspired this piece (let's call it an unofficial sound track):
> 
> "Belong" by Joshua Radin from Onward and Sideways  
> "Just Breathe" by Pearl Jam from Backspacer  
> "All Shades of Blue" by Gregory Allen Isokav from The Weatherman  
> "Maybe it's Time," by The Milk Carton Kids from Retrospect  
> "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks from Bella Donna  
> "Something to Talk About" by Bonnie Raitt from Luck of the Draw


End file.
